Mirror Exposes Misuse of Emergency Powers

by Jeremy on 11-Dec-2013

Yesterday’s Daily Mirror was one of several newspapers which exposed the incredible news that Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport, is determined to block the release of a report requested under the Freedom of Information Act by using emergency powers. The report is from 2011 and the government appears to be trying to distract attention from their reluctance to release the report by saying it is out of date. But if that is the whole truth why does the report’s secrecy matter so much? What are they really trying to hide?

To make the matter worse, the Mirror reported that a Department for Transport spokesman added: “There has been a huge amount of consultation on HS2 and we have been completely transparent about the project throughout.” Now that is a quite astonishing claim – as a glance at the enormous number of FOI requests which have been needed to get information out of the DFT in respect of the HS2 project attests. It does rather pose the question of how exactly the Department for Transport would define the words “transparent” and “truth”.